The present invention relates generally to cargo pallets and, more specifically, to a beer keg pallet or keg board used for stacking beer kegs of the type which are shipped in an upright orientation.
In large volume beer keg shipping operations, such as between a brewery and distributor, etc., beer keg cargos have traditionally been shipped in two different stacking arrangements. In one stacking arrangement, the beer kegs are positioned with the longitudinal axis of the keg in a horizontal configuration. In this arrangement, the kegs are mounted in racks having curved receiving portions which engages circumferential sidewall portions of a beer keg. In the other stacking arrangement, beer kegs are oriented with the central longitudinal axis of each beer keg in a generally vertical or "upright" orientation. In this mounting arrangement, beer kegs have traditionally been placed in side-by-side relationship on 4 foot by 4 foot plywood sheets. The dimensions of the beer kegs (typically a middle diameter of 17 inches and end diameters of 14.5 inches) are such that the kegs may be positioned in a 3.times.3 rectangular gridwork on each plywood sheet. The beer kegs are generally stacked in four tiers, i.e. four kegs high, with keg boards positioned between tiers, when the kegs are shipped by railcar. When shipped by truck, kegs are generally stacked in two tiers with keg boards positioned between the two tiers. In shipping by truck, a six keg (2.times.3) board having two rows of three kegs each is generally used in combination with a nine keg (3.times.3) board in order to occupy the entire width of the truck, i.e. a conventional truck cargo area is five kegs wide.
When shipping kegs in a vertical orientation, a continuing problem has been that the kegs tend to shift laterally due to shocks and vibrations encountered in transit. During such lateral shifting, the kegs often move with sufficient force to cause damage to the kegs, plywood keg boards and surrounding bulk head material positioned between stacks of kegs. The lateral shifting of the kegs also changes the alignment of the kegs from the uniform rows and columns in which the kegs are originally positioned to a more random positioning. A problem with such a random positioning is that, during large scale unloading operations in which forklifts are employed, the kegs must be manually realigned to provide ample space for inserting the prongs of the forklift between the kegs. Keg handling forklifts generally have at least one set of four prongs which enable the fork to engage and lift nine kegs at once in a 3.times.3 loading arrangement. In most loading operations, two tiers of stacked kegs, i.e. 18 kegs, are moved at once. Often a forklift operator faced with the manual task of aligning the kegs to be loaded simply rams the prong portions of the fork into the kegs to forcibly jam the barrels into a proper alignment for pickup by the forklift. However, such jamming operations tend to damage the kegs and are thus not an approved loading procedure.
One method of overcoming lateral keg shifting and associated problems is to provide a peripheral band around the kegs so as to hold the kegs in a tightly packed configuration which prevents lateral shifting. A problem with this solution is that such banding operations are inconvenient and time consuming and thus generally increase shipping costs.
Another problem associated with conventional methods of shipping beer kegs in an upright orientation is that the plywood keg boards used in such operations are relatively heavy and hard to handle and ar subject to being damaged during collection and return operations. Such boards are especially subject to damage when a board is dropped onto a corner portion thereof from a height of approximately one foot or more.